When Deer Park resident Nelly Lopez returned from a trip in January, two important members of her family were gone. As it turned out, they were stolen.

"I was out of the country on vacation and my parents were watching my dogs," she said. "When I came back on (Jan. 10), they told me both of the dogs had gotten out."

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The parents told her that after putting out fliers, using social media and searching the neighborhood, they found a neighbor who had seen the male and female Maltese dogs, who are named Rajah and Luna. But the neighbor related something disturbing.

"As the neighbor saw them, another person pulled up in a car and said that she knew where the dogs belonged and that she was going to take them back to their owner," Lopez said. "My neighbor told (the woman in the car) to wait and went inside to get a pen and paper so she could take down the woman's information in case anyone came around asking about my dogs. But when my neighbor came back outside, the woman in the car was gone."

A worried Lopez decided to look on Craigslist to see if anyone had put out an ad to sell the dogs. She didn't see an ad for her dogs but found one ad, and then another, from prospective buyers warning people not to purchase a Maltese from a seller in Houston.

The person trying to sell Lopez's dogs had posted an ad, later taken down, that included an ultrasound image as proof that the female dog was pregnant. The prospective buyers discovered the ultrasound was from the United Kingdom and put out the alerts.

"It was my dog in the (warning) ad," Lopez said. "I got screenshots of everything that I had and I took that information to the police."

Trying to get the dogs back wasn't easy, Deer Park police detective Frank Hart said.Because the original ad was no longer up, the police department had to subpoena Craigslist to find who posted it. The police hit another roadblock when the phone number used on the ad traced back to a phone without a provider.

"So, the police had to send out more subpoenas to get the thief's real phone number," Lopez said. "After they got that, they tried calling her."

Hart said that after police made initial contact with the suspect, things seemed to be moving along.

"She was cooperative at first and seemed like she wanted to help but very quickly became uncooperative," Hart said. "She claimed she gave the dogs away. She claimed she didn't know who she gave them to."

Several days into the investigation, the detective assigned to the case had to subpoena another phone company in an effort to retrieve the suspect's phone records.

"He worked on that case a little bit every day," Hart said, "cold-calling all of those numbers to see if anyone had the dogs or knew what happened to them."

After dozens of calls, there were a few numbers on the list that hadn't answered. The dogs had been missing for more than three weeks.

"The detective who helped me, Detective (Nick) Thatcher, was so kind and so patient with me," Lopez said. "I know they have other cases and I know he was busy with other things, but he always answered my questions and he was so reassuring. I appreciate him so much."

Eventually Lopez's story was featured on a local television news program. A couple who purchased the dogs with no idea they had been stolen contacted Detective Thatcher to return them to Lopez.

"He went to go pick them up and asked for a description of the person who sold them. That description matched the description of the person my neighbor saw right after the dogs got out of my back yard," Lopez said. "Then he brought Luna and Rajah back to me in Deer Park."

The person accused of stealing and selling the dogs could be charged with a misdemeanor, but as of presstime, charges had not been accepted by the Harris County District Attorney's Office.

Lopez said that she is extremely grateful for the hard work put into the case by the Deer Park police.

"This is a small community, and they went over and beyond to make sure I felt reassured and taken care of," she said. "I know I called a bunch. I was devastated, but they were always so nice and helpful. There is no way I'd have my dogs back if it wasn't for their hard work. My dogs were sold on Jan. 8 and police returned them to me on Jan. 29 - they worked for almost a month for me and my dogs."

Hart said that effort put forth into finding Lopez's dogs is the same effort they put into all of their cases.

"Not every case turns out like this, but our detectives work really hard to make sure that the people who come to us, while they might be victims of a crime, don't walk away feeling victimized," Hart said.